Vitiligo

Vitiligo is an autoimmune disease that arises when the cells of the body that produce melanin stop functioning correctly. It causes one’s skin to develop white patches. While vitiligo can technically be described as a disease, it’s not medically dangerous. It can affect one’s appearance, but it’s not life-threatening or contagious.

Vitiligo is different from albinism because the latter is a genetic disorder that affects one’s entire body. The Jamaican-Canadian TV personality Winnie Harlow has vitiligo and spoke about her experience with the disease in a TEDx presentation and a viral YouTube video.